Hoops Nerd

Extended Holiday Break ending in 3...2...1...

This is the season's first set of Hoops Nerd Ratings that completely disregard preseason projections - the weight assigned to the current season is now 100%. The preseason projections did not separate offense from defense, but instead was built by one single +/- points per 67 possessions number. Now, free from the shackles of those crude projections, offense and defense are treated as the insular categories that they are.

The Hoops Nerd Ratings are explained here. Since the preseason projections are now disregarded, and offense and defense are calculated separately, the regression model in the aforelinked explanation reigns in two different types (offense and defense) of aberrant performances. The Hoops Nerd Ratings are expressed in plus or minutes points per 67 possessions.

1. Duke (Last Ratings [12/10]: 1)
Hoops Nerd Rating: +25.8
Best Fall 2007 Win: Marquette
Worst Fall 2007 Loss: Pittsburgh
Fall 2007 MVP: Jon Scheyer

2. Marquette (8)
HNR: +20.8
Best Win: Wisconsin
Worst Loss: Duke
MVP: Lazar Hayward

3. North Carolina (4)
HNR: +20.7
Best Win: Ohio St.
Worst Loss: n/a
MVP: Tyler Hansbrough

4. Kansas (2)
HNR: +20.4
Best Win: Arizona
Worst Loss: n/a
MVP: Mario Chalmers

5. West Virginia (6)
HNR: +20.0
Best Win: New Mexico St.
Worst Loss: Oklahoma
MVP: Alex Ruoff

6. Tennessee (3)
HNR: +20.0
Best Win: West Virginia
Worst Loss: Texas
MVP: Tyler Smith

7. Michigan St. (5)
HNR: +19.5
Best Win: Texas
Worst Loss: UCLA
MVP: Drew Neitzel

8. Wisconsin (7)
HNR: +18.8
Best Win: Texas
Worst Loss: Marquette
MVP: Joe Krabbenhoft

9. Indiana (20)
HNR: +18.7
Best Win: Illinois St.
Worst Loss: Xavier
MVP: D.J. White

10. Georgetown (12)
HNR: +17.9
Best Win: Alabama
Worst Loss: Memphis
MVP: Roy Hibbert

Hoops Nerd Ratings Teams 11 - 30

11. Mississippi (24), +17.9
12. Notre Dame (22), +17.8
13. New Mexico (NR), +17.3
14. Clemson (15), +17.0
15. Xavier (13), +17.0
16. Drake (NR), +16.7
17. Texas A&M (19), +16.5
18. Pittsburgh (17), +15.4
19. Arkansas (11), +15.2
20. Florida (18), +14.9
21. Texas (10), +14.8
22. Memphis (16), +14.7
23. Arizona (NR), +14.6
24. UCLA (9), +14.5
25. Syracuse (NR), +14.4
26. South Carolina (NR), +14.3
27. Florida St. (21), +14.1
28. Minnesota (NR), +14.0
29. Gonzaga (NR), +13.9
30. Oklahoma (NR), +13.9

New this Week: New Mexico, Drake, Arizona, Syracuse, South Carolina, Minnesota, Gonzaga, Oklahoma.
Disappearing this Week: Louisville, Butler, Kentucky, Creighton, Illinois, Washington St., George Mason, BYU.
On the Cusp: Mississippi St., Creighton, Washington St., Connecticut, Butler.

The Hoops Nerd rankings will not be updated this week, basically because of the dearth of games during Finals Week. I will be around later in the week with some other stuff...

This is the fourth update to the initial Hoops Nerd Ratings. You can find those pre-season ratings here.

Remember, the Hoops Nerd Ratings are expressed in + or - points per 67 possessions. Current season data (heavily regressed!) is given more weight as the season progresses. The Hoops Nerd Ratings are fully explained here.

1. Duke (Last Week: 1)
Hoops Nerd Rating: +23.8
By adding a thunderous beat-down of Michigan to its resume, Duke is able to maintain its spot atop the Ratings. As has been written in this space before (and as Jonah Keri points out), the biggest difference between last season's Blue Devils and this iteration is that they are faster, playing at the 24th highest adjusted pace in the country.

2. Kansas (2)
Rating: +21.6
The Jayhawks beat up on Eastern Washington (now Stuckey-free and terrible!) and DePaul last week. Hopefully somebody will get Kansas guard Brandon Rush a day-planner book this holiday season.

3. Tennessee (3)
Rating: +20.7
Tennessee had a closer brush with the Mocs than they likely would have expected. The Hoops Nerd Ratings are structured in such a way (for a description of the innards, read here) that if the Volunteers can maintain the healthy margin established between themselves and the rest of the SEC, then they will likely remain very high in the overall ratings.

4. North Carolina (4)
Rating: +20.5
The Tar Heels are 8 - 0 for the first time this century, after blowing out Penn last week. While the prevailing assumption in Chapel Hill is likely that UNC will enter conference play undefeated, the Tar Heels will face four consecutive better-than-one-might-think opponents from December 22nd to January 2: UCSB (+6.9 Hoops Nerd Rating), Nevada (+7.7), Valparaiso (+5.3), and Kent St. (+10.1).

5. Michigan St. (5)
Rating: +20.3
Michigan St. scored two decent non-conference wins last week, over Bradley and Brigham Young (the Spartans were underdogs in the latter). Izzo's is the top offensive rebounding team in the country (47.3 OR%, per kenpom), thanks primarily to Goran Suton (18.0), Raymar Morgan (14.1), and Marquise Gray (12.7).

6. West Virginia (13)
Rating: +20.2
The Mountaineers won two blowouts last week, over Auburn and Duquesne. West Virginia is currently ranked number one in the Pomeroy Ratings, but is stuck in the "also receiving votes" category in the Associated Press Poll (fourth listed in that category, so I suppose that makes them 29th). They are steadily climbing the Hoops Nerd Ratings because (a) they are staying ahead of the Big East pack in terms of efficiency, and (b) each week, current season data is given more weight relative to the pre-season ratings.

7. Wisconsin (9)
Rating: +19.8
The Badgers (having roundly beaten Wofford and narrowly lost to Marquette) are yet another example of a team that is looked more kindly upon by objective rating systems than subjective ones (35th in the AP, 5th in the KP), but for a slightly different reason than West Virginia. Wisconsin has two high profile losses (Duke, Marquette), but has absolutely trounced all other competition. To wit: against the six other opponents (IPFW, Savannah St., Florida A&M, Colorado, Georgia, Wofford), the Badgers have notched an average margin of victory of 32.5 points. The difference in how ratings systems view Wisconsin is rooted in how the systems account for margin of victory. Consider the two rating systems used by Jeff Sagarin, ELO Chess (which is only concerned with which teams beat which teams regardless of margin of victory) and Predictor (which takes degree of victory into account): Wisconsin ranks 35th in the ELO Chess and 13th in the Predictor. Not surprisingly, I'm with Pomeroy/Predictor, not AP/ELO Chess, on this one. While the AP (and ELO Chess) furtively tosses out a win over Savannah St. as meaningless, the truth is that there is still valuable information there, because beating Savannah St. by 47 points (as the Badgers did) is better than beating them by significantly less than that (like Colorado, Creighton and Northwestern have).

8. Marquette (10)
Rating: +19.7
The win over Wisconsin was helpful, and the loss to Duke is looking less and less objectionable as the weeks pass. If Marquette loses again in 2007, something will have gone horribly, horribly wrong, as their four remaining opponents this year are Sacramento St., IPFW, Coppin St., and Savannah St.

9. UCLA (7)
Rating: +19.4
The Bruins needed to overcome an 18 point deficit to win against ambitiously-scheduling Davidson (a team that just can't get over the hump: the Wildcats nearly beat North Carolina and Duke, before blowing the big lead against UCLA). Russell Westbrook (he of the award-winning haircut) is still playing a key role even after the return of Darren Collison.

10. Texas (6)
Rating: +18.9
The Longhorns are unbeaten and will likely remain so until December 22nd, when they face Michigan St. D.J. Augustin ranks in the top 100 nationally in Offensive Rating, Effective Field Goal Percentage, and Assist Rate (all courtesy of kenpom), which essentially makes him the perfect point guard.

Hoops Nerd Ratings Teams 11 - 30

11. Arkansas (18), +18.7
12. Georgetown (8), +18.5
13. Xavier (16), +17.6
14. Louisville (11), +17.5
15. Clemson (14), +17.4
16. Memphis (12), +17.1
17. Pittsburgh (19), +16.4
18. Florida (17), +16.3
19. Texas A&M (20), +16.3
20. Indiana (21), +16.2
21. Florida St. (24), +15.8
22. Notre Dame (23), +15.8
23. Butler (22), +15.0
24. Mississippi (NR), +14.9
25. Kentucky (15), +14.5
26. Creighton (NR), +14.5
27. Illinois (28), +14.4
28. Washington St. (25), +14.4
29. George Mason (26), +14.1
30. BYU (29), +14.1

New this Week: Mississippi, Creighton
Disappearing this Week: Southern Illinois, Mississippi St.
On the Cusp: Missouri, Stanford, Oregon, Mississippi St., Maryland

Clash of the Titans (the matchup between two teams with the highest combined Hoops Nerd Rating): Creighton (+12.7) lost at Xavier (+17.5), 79-66. On the court, Xavier point guard Drew Lavender controlled the game, with 10 assists and an 84.6 effective field goal percentage, taking 13 shots in 25 minutes. Off the court, it was a sad and tragic day in Omaha, Nebraska (home to Creighton).

The Poison Cupcake (the night's biggest upset): Iowa, an 11.5 point underdog, beat Northern Iowa, 62-55 in Cedar Falls. That the Hawkeyes best win of the season occurred on the same date as Tony Freeman's return from injury is no coincidence; with Adam Haluska's graduation and Tyler Smith's transfer, Freeman was to be Iowa's most prolific returnee this season. To wit: Freeman was 3 for 3 from three point range, with 5 for 7 overall shooting (good for 15 points) in only 24 minutes last night.

Superman Wears Dominique Jones Pajamas (the night's top performer): South Florida's freshman guard put up some gaudy superficial numbers against Richmond, which is rare because a Spiders game usually includes too few possessions for that sort of thing. Last night, however, the game was played at a 67.8 possession pace, which was obviously the Bulls dictation. In any event, here are some of Jones' tempo-free numbers:

Dominique Jones 12/5 vs. Richmond
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 87.5
Points per Weighted Shot: 1.83
Defensive Rebounding Percentage: 31.6
Free Throw Rate: 75.0

This is the third update to the initial Hoops Nerd Ratings. You can find those pre-season ratings here.

Remember, the Hoops Nerd Ratings are expressed in + or - points per 67 possessions. Current season data (heavily regressed!) is given more weight as the season progresses. The Hoops Nerd Ratings are fully explained here.

1. Duke (Last Week: 3)
Hoops Nerd Rating: +23.1
Wins over Davidson (close) and Wisconsin (decidedly not close) delivered Duke to the top spot in this week's ratings. Their only game this week comes at home against a team that lost to Harvard last Saturday, so there is a high probability that the Blue Devils will maintain the pole position in these ratings for at least another week. If only ESPN would cease its blatantly anti-Duke agenda...

2. Kansas (1)
Rating: +22.4
Kansas' Rating improved since last week, but to a lesser extent that Duke's, so the Jayhawks fall to second place. I cannot possibly be the first person to write this, but what the hell: Rod(rick) Stewart is giving Kansas fans a Reason to Believe. Stewart leads the team with a 133.3 offensive rating and a 33.6 assist rate, per kenpom.com.

3. Tennessee (6)
Rating: +21.4
The Volunteers are moving the ball around this season (assists on 67.8% of their made field goals) and hitting their shots (55.3 effective field goal percentage), and playing at the high pace to which they have become accustomed in the Bruce Pearl era. Tennessee moves up this week on the basis of two blowouts, albeit against week competition.

4. North Carolina (4)
Rating: +21.4
Living up to the lofty standard set by Gardner-Webb earlier this season, the Tar Heels beat Kentucky on Saturday. For the North Carolina fan on your Christmas list, some Duke satire.

5. Michigan St. (2)
Rating: +21.4
The Spartans did nothing to deserve the three-spot drop in the Ratings, blowing out North Carolina St. and Jacksonville. Though it is somewhat obscured by the slow pace at which they play, Michigan St. has been totally dominant on the offensive glass, with an offensive rebound percentage of 45.8, second in the nation behind only Pitt.

6. Texas (16)
Rating: +19.4
Beating UCLA in Los Angeles is a pretty big deal. A lesson in context: Texas' offense is leading the nation in points per possession, but they are 17th in points per game.

7. UCLA (7)
Rating: +19.4
The Bruins lost The Big Game to Texas, but there is another one coming this week vs. a Davidson team that followed almost beating North Carolina with almost beating Duke. The best news of the week for UCLA was, of course, that Darren Collison played 26 minutes in a game against George Washington and made a full-blown 39-minute return from injury against Texas.

8. Georgetown (5)
Rating: +19.3
Well of course the Hoyas beat Old Dominion and Fairfield last week, and they should beat Alabama this week. The only top echelon opponent that Georgetown will face before 2008 is Memphis, on December 22nd. As expected, the Hoyas offense has been very good and very, very slow.

9. Wisconsin (8)
Rating: +19.0
A couple of hours from now, the Badgers will tip off in a game against Wofford, and no matter how big the blowout (Vegas says 28.5 points) it will not be enough to eliminate the memory of the terrible beating suffered at Cameron Indoor Stadium last week.

10. Marquette (15)
Rating: +19.0
The last good non-conference game of 2007 for Marquette (they've already played Duke and Oklahoma St.) is at Wisconsin this Saturday. After starting all 34 games last season, Ousmane Barro has come off the bench in every game so far this season; what's up with that?

Hoops Nerd Ratings Teams 11 - 30

11. Louisville (9), +18.9
12. Memphis (11), +18.7
13. West Virginia (21), +18.3
14. Clemson (12), +17.9
15. Kentucky (10), +17.9
16. Xavier (19), +17.5
17. Florida (16), +17.2
18. Arkansas (18), +17.0
19. Pittsburgh (17), +16.8
20. Texas A&M (14), +16.0
21. Indiana (26), +16.0
22. Butler (23), +15.2
23. Notre Dame (27), +15.0
24. Florida St. (25), +14.9
25. Washington St. (22), +14.8
26. George Mason (NR), +14.5
27. Southern Illinois (20), +14.4
28. Illinois (29), +14.4
29. BYU (NR), +14.1
30. Mississippi St. (28), +13.8

New this Week: George Mason, BYU
Disappearing this Week: Ohio St., Missouri
On the Cusp: Oregon, Ohio St., Missouri, Connecticut, Vanderbilt

Clash of the Titans (the matchup between two teams with the highest combined Hoops Nerd Rating): Oklahoma (+12.3) (clearly no Mercer) lost by eleven to Southern California (+9.9) in Los Angeles. The second most famous Trojan freshman, Davon Jefferson, outplayed his celebrity cohort, contributing an effective field goal percentage of 58.3 (and a Free Throw Rate of 75) to Mayo's 44.7.

The Poison Cupcake (the night's biggest upset): Jeff Bzdelik's return to Clune Arena at the Air Force Academy was successful as his new team (Colorado) upset his old team (Air Force) by virtue of a ten point win as a seven point underdog. Buffs star Richard Roby - who claims to have used the anti-Bzdelik atmosphere as a motivational tool - nearly hit the elusive >1 Effective Field Goal Percentage threshold, coming in at 94.4 for the game (7 of 9 including 3 of 5 from deep).

Superman Wears Tony Lee Pajamas (the night's top performer): Robert Morris' senior guard made impressions in multiple columns on the Hoops Nerd's Excel workbook last night, accumulating significant amounts of points, steals, assists and rebounds. Adjusted for tempo, it looks like this:

Tony Lee 11/29 vs. Florida International
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 83.3
Offensive Rebounding Percentage: 24.8
Defensive Rebounding Percentage: 38.7
Assists per 100 Individual Possessions: 13.0
Steals per 100 Individual Possessions: 8.7

This is the second update to the initial Hoops Nerd Ratings. You can find those pre-season ratings here.

Remember, the Hoops Nerd Ratings are expressed in + or - points per 67 possessions. Current season data (heavily regressed!) is given low weight at this early point in the season. The Hoops Nerd Ratings are fully explained here.

1. Kansas (Last Week: 1)
Hoops Nerd Rating: +21.7
Having beaten both Northern Arizona (handily) and Arizona (not so handily) last week, Kansas maintains its position atop the Hoops Nerd Ratings. Jayhawk fans are still pretty focused on football, but the basketball squad is the real national title contender.

2. Michigan St. (2)
Rating: +21.7
The narrow margin of the win over Oakland is of greater concern than the neutral-court loss to UCLA. Both the UCLA game and the win over Missouri (in the semi-finals of the same tournament) could have an impact on tournament seeding.

3. Duke (5)
Rating: +21.7
Mere hundredths of a point separate the Blue Devils from the top spot. Wins in Maui over Hoops Nerd Ratings top 30 cohorts Illinois and Marquette are duly impressive. In this space last week, I wrote about the relatively high probability of an upset in a game with relatively few possessions, using as an example that night's Duke vs. Princeton game. I was wrong on a couple of fronts: Duke blew-out the Tigers, and the Blue Devils are playing at a higher-than-expected (at least by me) pace, 48th quickest in D1 according to Ken Pomeroy's adjusted stats.

4. North Carolina (4)
Rating: +21.6
Status quo for the Tar Heels, authors of an expected blow-out of South Carolina St. and expected moderately-sized wins over Old Dominion and BYU. John Gasaway wants to ensure that you appreciate the perennial quality of UNC's defense.

5. Georgetown (3)
Rating: +20.9
Just how grounded and stoic does one have to be to react to a nine-point road win over the program from which one's brother resigned as head coach among much controversy, with a quote like "Free throws and turnovers hurt us... [w]e've got to take care of that. I don't think we were flustered, we just didn't execute the way we were supposed to."?

6. Tennessee (13)
Rating: +20.0
Lose to Texas and move up seven spots? There are two reasons. Firstly, the Vols did beat West Virginia and lay unholy waste to Middle Tennessee St. this week. Secondly, by virtue of the way that the Hoops Nerd Ratings work, ratings within a given conference are zero-sum, so very poor weeks for Florida and Arkansas have had a positive impact on the ratings of Tennessee and Kentucky.

7. UCLA (8)
Rating: +19.8
Already without Darren Collison, James Keefe and Michael Roll, Bruins fans were relieved to learn that Alfred Aboya will be able to play through his fractured orbital bone, likely with some really cool goggles. The win over Michigan St. was uniquely viewed by the Hoops Nerd Ratings as an upset.

8. Wisconsin (9)
Rating: +19.5
These ratings would look very fondly at a road-win over Duke tomorrow evening in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. When is a returning starter not a returning starter? When he's on the bench - senior guard Michael Flowers started every game last season but is in the sixth-man role this season.

9. Louisville (6)
Rating: +19.5
Well that didn't go as planned. BYU perpetrated a rude pre-emptive strike against what was to be a North Carolina vs. Louisville final in the Las Vegas Invitational. The pre-conference-play schedule is peppered with BYU-style better-than-you-might-think competition, including Miami (OH), Dayton and New Mexico St., so the Padgettless Cardinals had better be on guard.

10. Kentucky (15)
Rating: +19.1
North Carolina's trip to Rupp Arena this Saturday will provide the hosts with an opportunity to move further up these rankings.

Hoops Nerd Ratings Teams 11 - 30

11. Memphis (7), +18.7
12. Clemson (11), +18.6
13. Texas (16), +18.4
14. Texas A&M (12), +18.2
15. Marquette (19), +17.7
16. Florida (10), +17.5
17. Pittsburgh (23), +17.5
18. Arkansas (14), +17.2
19. Xavier (27), +16.1
20. Southern Illinois (18), +15.9
21. West Virginia (22), +15.8
22. Washington St. (30), +15.4
23. Butler (NR), +15.2
24. Ohio St. (24), +15.1
25. Florida St. (28), +15.0
26. Indiana (20), +14.9
27. Notre Dame (17), +14.9
28. Mississippi St. (21), +14.9
29. Illinois (NR), +14.5
30. Missouri (NR), +14.5

New this Week: Butler, Illinois, Missouri
Disappearing this Week: Oregon, North Carolina St., Virginia
On the Cusp: Oregon, North Carolina St., Maryland, BYU, Connecticut

Clash of the Titans (the matchup between two teams with the highest combined Hoops Nerd Rating): Experience reigned as Florida St. (+14.6) topped Florida (+18.9), 65 - 51. The average class for Florida St. in last night's game, weighted by minutes played, was 3.3, or Junior.3, if that makes sense; for Florida, it was 1.5, or Freshman.5.

The Poison Cupcake (the night's biggest upset): see above. The Seminoles were 9.5 point underdogs in Gainesville. Jason Rich led the way for Florida St. with 11 rebounds and a 61.5 effective field goal percentage.

Superman Wears D.J. Augustin Pajamas (the night's top performer): the sophomore guard played 38 wonderful minutes in last night's Legends Classic in Newark, N.J. The context-adjusted numbers:

D.J. Augustin 11/23 vs. New Mexico St.
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 80.0
Assists per 100 Individual Possessions: 14.7
Steals per 100 Individual Possessions: 5.9

Clash of the Titans (the matchup between two teams with the highest combined Hoops Nerd Rating): Duke (+21.2) notched a four-point win over Marquette (+16.0), 77 - 73 in Maui. The AP would have called this an upset (number 13 beating number 11), but the Hoops Nerd Ratings knew better (number 5 beating number 19). The Blue Devils are playing much faster than last season, at an adjusted tempo of 73.8 relative to last season's 65.9, per the numbers at kenpom.com.

The Poison Cupcake (the night's biggest upset): it seems odd to even type this, but the Manhattan Jaspers were the devourer of last night's poison cupcake, squandering a ten point halftime lead to lose by four to Eastern Michigan. The Eagles were an eight point underdog.

Superman Wears Malcolm Thomas Pajamas (the night's top performer): yes, it was a fast-paced game that went into overtime (thus inflating the raw numbers) but it was still a very good context-adjusted game for the Pepperdine freshman:

Malcolm Thomas 11/21 vs. Long Beach St.
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 63.6
Free Throw Rate: 54.55
Defensive Rebounding Percentage: 43.7
Blocks per 100 Individual Possessions: 4.0

On Hoops Nerd Christmas (also known as The Release Date)...

Clash of the Titans (the matchup between two teams with the highest combined Hoops Nerd Rating): there are no shortage of places to read up on UCLA's (+19.2) comeback victory over Michigan St. (+22.2) - mostly with glowing reviews of Kevin Love's performance - but it's important to note that he did commit five turnovers and had an effective field goal percentage of 40%. Possessions are the currency in basketball, and while we are quick to laud a players for converting them into points (hitting shots) or retaining them (offensive rebounding), sometimes we overlook a player's careless inefficiency in squandering (missing shots) or relinquishing (turning the ball over) possessions. That is: it was a great game by Love (particularly in drawing fouls), but there is still work to do on the efficiency front.

The Poison Cupcake (the night's biggest upset): in a night of relatively few upsets, the most prolific was Towson's win - as a four point underdog - over Samford. There have been multiple significant upsets virtually every night up until last. If there are fewer upsets as the season progresses, does that simply mean that odds-makers are getting better at identifying which teams ought to be favored? Or does being favored affect the outcome itself? Only at Hoops Nerd do we talk about this kind of stuff... I mean, when was the last time Andy Katz or Dick Vitale* invoked Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?
*"It's existential BABY!!!"

Superman Wears Eric Gordon Pajamas (the night's top performer): Indiana's freshman Guard makes the first of what could be many appearances in this space. The context-adjusted stats:

Eric Gordon 11/20 vs. UNC Wilmington
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 75.0
Free Throw Rate: 100.0
Assists per 100 Possessions: 9.1
Turnovers per 100 Possessions: 3.0

The Hoops Nerd Ratings, are due for their first update of the season. Not much has changed since the preseason ratings, of course, but two teams have dropped from the Hoops Nerd Ratings Top 30.

Remember, the Hoops Nerd Ratings are expressed in + or - points per 67 possessions. Current season data (heavily regressed!) is given low weight at this early point in the season. The Hoops Nerd Ratings are fully explained here.

1. Kansas (Last Week: 1)
Hoops Nerd Rating: +23.4
Not much to see here. Brandon Rush is back and the Jayhawks have predictably beaten up on Louisiana-Monroe, UMKC and something called Washburn (the weakest schedule this side of Jayhawks Football). Things get tougher beginning on Sunday when Arizona steps into the Phog.

2. Michigan St. (2)
Rating: +22.2
The Spartans notched easy victories over Louisiana-Monroe and Chicago St., but they'll be acutely tested about three hours from now when they face the Missouri Tigers in Kansas City. Luckily for Michigan St., the exhibition loss to Grand Valley St. and near-loss to Michigan Tech are not considered here. Drew Neitzel is the small-sample-size hero so far; he is 6 for 9 from three-point range and has 13 assists to one turnover.

3. Georgetown (3)
Rating: +22.1
William & Mary posed more of a challenge to the Hoyas than did Michigan, but at any rate they are undefeated on the young season. Wednesday's trip to Muncie, Indiana to play Ball State has a compelling and well-documented storyline - I'll be watching.

4. North Carolina (4)
Rating: +21.4
The Tar Heels are tied with UCLA atop the Coach's Poll, but are three spots below that in the Hoops Nerd Ratings. Only two points per 67 possessions separate North Carolina from Kansas in the rankings, and as the season goes on and the current data is weighed more heavily, the Heels will have an opportunity to quickly close the gap. Yes it's a hackneyed and stale phrase, but UNC layed the smack down* on Iona.
* narrowly chosen over "opened up a can".

5. Duke (5)
Rating: +21.2
The more possessions that there are in a game, the truer the result - this is a matter of sample size. Intuitively, we all know this; if a high school team played the Boston Celtics in a one-possession game, there is at least some chance that the high school team could win. In a ten possession game, there might be some tiny probability of the Celts losing, and in a 100 possession game the high school team would have no chance. So: fewer possessions means more upsets. In a related story, Duke (the 203rd fastest team in D1 last season) plays Princeton (the slowest in D1) tonight in Maui.

6. Louisville (8)
Rating: +19.5
The first big mover in this week's Hoops Nerd Ratings, the Cardinals leaped over Memphis and UCLA. In bleaker news, the schedule is about to get tougher (tougher than Hartford and Jackson St. you ask? Yes.) and David Padgett is out for at least ten weeks with a knee injury. With Padgett gone, Louisville is one Big Mac Extra Value Meal away from having no offensive rebounding at all.

7. Memphis (7)
Rating: +19.4
Memphis beat Connecticut in a Hoops Nerd Clash of the Titans, and also has a win over Oklahoma. The Tigers' schedule has been tough, and will continue to be so until the new year, relative to other top ten teams, presumably to compensate for their being in Conference USA. Andy Katz has a pretty good assessment of Memphis.

8. UCLA (6)
Rating: +19.2
The Bruins are undefeated but the first real test tips off tonight when they face Maryland in Kansas City. While the nation is focused on the battle of which Los Angeles freshman with garner the most pun-invoking headlines ("Hold the Mayo", "All You Need is Love", etc.), UCLA coach Howland is doing a laudable job recruiting the next crop.

9. Wisconsin (12)
Rating: +19.0
The Badgers won four games last week, and the closest one was a 28 point drubbing of IPFW. The Hoops Nerd is looking forward to next Tuesday's Wisconsin @ Duke game.

10. Florida (16)
Rating: +18.9
The Gators are the biggest mover in this week's Hoops Nerd Ratings, up six spots. Plenty of bandwidth has been dedicated to the discussion of talent lost from last year's team, but not to worry: when football season is over, the former contributions of Jaokim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green can be easily replaced by Tim Tebow.

Hoops Nerd Ratings Teams 11 - 30

11. Clemson (11), +18.6
12. Texas A&M (10), +18.3
13. Tennessee (9), +17.5
14. Arkansas (13), +17.3
15. Kentucky (14), +17.1
16. Texas (19), +16.2
17. Notre Dame (23), +16.0
18. Southern Illinois (18), +16.0
19. Marquette (15), +16.0
20. Indiana (27), +15.9
21. Mississippi St. (24), +15.9
22. West Virginia (29), +15.5
23. Pittsburgh (21), +15.4
24. Ohio St. (17), +14.8
25. Oregon (25), +14.8
26. North Carolina St. (20), +14.7
27. Xavier (26), +14.7
28. Florida St. (22), +14.6
29. Virginia (NR), +14.2
30. Washington St. (NR), +14.2

Dropped: Maryland, Illinois

Clash of the Titans (the matchup between two teams with the highest combined Hoops Nerd Rating): Virginia (+13.9) defeated Arizona (+10.3). The Cats are still bothered by having lost to the Cavs by three points last season... and it happened again.

The Poison Cupcake (the night's biggest upset): Cleveland St. upset Florida St. in the Glenn Wilkes Classic tournament in Daytona Beach, FL. The Vikings built an 18 - 4 lead but needed overtime for the win. Cleveland St. was a 12.5 point underdog.

Superman Wears Kyle Landry Pajamas (the night's top performer): the Northern Arizona senior went 8 of 10 from the field with 14 rebounds and 10 trips to the free throw line. The context-adjusted stats were just as impressive:

Kyle Landry 11/17 vs. UMKC
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 80.0
Free Throw Rate: 70.0
Offensive Rebound Percentage: 36.3
Defensive Rebound Percentage: 28.9

Clash of the Titans (the matchup between two teams with the highest combined Hoops Nerd Rating): things worked essentially as planned for Memphis (+19.7) in an 81 - 70 win over Connecticut (+13.4) in the final of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, as Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts did the scoring while Joey Dorsey and Robert Dozier did the rebounding.

The Poison Cupcake (the night's biggest upset): Providence - without its top three point shooter from last season, Sharaud Curry - beat Arkansas by 16 points in Puerto Rico. An atrocious 42.6 turnover percentage (32 turnovers on 75 possessions) sealed Arkansas' fate.

Superman Wears Donte Greene Pajamas (the night's top performer): the Syracuse freshman forward helped the Orange beat up on Fordham 80 - 63. The numbers you need to know:

Donte Greene 11/16 vs. Fordham
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 82.1
Offensive Rebound Percentage: 27.1

Clash of the Titans (the matchup between two teams with the highest combined Hoops Nerd Rating): Clemson (+18.1) defeated Mississippi St. (+14.9) in Starkville. The Tigers were able to win - despite shooting only 34.3% (40.0% effective field goal percentage) - on the strength of 38 trips to the free throw line and 19 Mississippi St. turnovers.

The Poison Cupcake (the night's biggest upset): the San Jose State Spartans went to Middle Tennessee State's First Shot tournament in Murfreesboro and beat the hosts by a single point on a bucket by DeShawn Wright with five seconds remaining. San Jose State was an 11 point underdog.

Superman Wears J.J. Hickson Pajamas (the night's top performer): the freshman Forward/Center for the North Carolina St. Wolfpack dropped 31 points on William & Mary last night with 12 of 12 shooting and seven rebounds. Below please find the real stats; If these stats are new and confusing to you, please check out any of the glossaries/primers on tempo-free and context-corrected basketball stats floating around the internets - there is a good one at the Phog Blog, for instance.

J.J. Hickson 11/15 vs. William & Mary
Effective Field Goal Percentage: 100.0
Offensive Rebound Percentage: 20.8
Defensive Rebound Percentage: 6.2
Free Throw Rate: 50.0

What are the Hoops Nerd Ratings? Read here.

Remember, the Hoops Nerd Ratings are expressed in expected +/- points per 67 possessions against average competition. There are some results here that go strongly against public opinion, and there is something to consider while doing a spit-take on your LCD: there is nothing subjective in these ratings, so whereas the analysis-model, described in the aforelinked post, is fair game for criticism, allegations of bias extrinsic to the model are unfounded.

These ratings will be updated on a weekly basis. There are almost as many sets of "power rankings" on the internet as there are teams in the Big East, but here at Hoops Nerd you will find a sort of peculiar objectivity that you won't find elsewhere.

Preseason Top 30

1. Kansas
Hoops Nerd Rating: +23.5
Preseason AP: 4
Kansas returns everybody but Julian Wright, but will have to deal with early season injuries to Brandon Rush (will return soon) and Sherron Collins (won’t return soon). They’ve beaten up on early November cannon-fodder UMKC and Louisiana Monroe. Kansas figures to dominate its own conference to a greater extent than any of its power conference cohorts.

2. Michigan State
Rating: +22.3
Preseason AP: 8
Every Spartan who logged significant minutes last season is back for what should be a successful run through an Oden-free Big Ten. I’m somewhat skeptical about the AP’s selection of Drew Neitzel as a preseason All-American and there is a disconnect: if Neitzel is the best point guard in the country (which the AP contends), then the Spartans – who return everybody and were a top 15 team a season ago – should surely be ranked higher than 8^th (preseason AP rank).

3. Georgetown
Rating: +22.3
Preseason AP: 5
Jeff Green is gone but Roy Hibbert remains for the Hoyas, which is better than the converse would be – Hibbert was the superior player last season besting Green in Effective Field Goal Percentage and Offensive and Defensive Rebounding Percentages. A December 22^nd showdown with Memphis is a gem on the national pre-conference play schedule.

4. North Carolina
Rating: +21.1
Preseason AP: 1
Losing Brandon Wright and Reyshawn Terry is going to hurt, but Tyler “Psycho T” Hansbrough is about to go bat-guano-insane on the ACC. The Tar Heels nearly lost to Davidson on a neutral court on Wednesday night, which is entirely defensible but may have some AP voters feeling apprehensive about their preseason darling.

5. Duke
Rating: +20.6
Preseason AP: 13
This is probably the first spit-take inducement among these rankings, but consider that (a) everybody except for Josh McRoberts returns to Cameron, (b) freshman Kyle Singler is one of the ACC’s (if not the country’s) top new-comers, and, most importantly, (c) Duke was much better than its record last season, recording 9.7 Pythagorean wins in-conference relative to only 8 actual conference victories.

6. UCLA
Rating: +20.1
Preseason AP: 2
Like the other teams near the top of the rankings, the Bruins bring back most of their key contributors from last season; in fact, only Arron Afflalo is missing. When guard Darren Collison returns from his injury, which should be sometime during November, UCLA will be at full-force.

7. Memphis
Rating: +19.7
Preseason AP: 3
There is no credible challenger to the Tigers within Conference USA, and that fact will undoubtedly lead to a gaudy (if not perfect) conference record. Memphis will earn its tournament seed this fall with a difficult non-conference schedule that includes Georgetown, Arizona, Gonzaga, Tennessee, and USC.

8. Louisville
Rating: +19.6
Preseason AP: 6
Virtually everybody returns for Rick Pitino this season – of its vast array of Big East brethren only Marquette and Connecticut have lost less talent. When Palacios gets healthy and if Caracter stays fit, Louisville should contend for a conference title.

9. Tennessee
Rating: +18.5
Preseason AP: 7
Tennessee’s place atop of the SEC is as much attributable to the fact that Noah, Horford, Brewer, Green, Humphrey and Richard have fled Gainesville as it is to the high incumbency rate at Rocky Top. Not only is everybody back (save for Dane Bradshaw), but Iowa transfer Tyler Smith (Big Ten All-Freshman team last season) was given compassionate clearance by the NCAA to suit-up for Tennessee immediately.

10. Texas A&M
Rating: +18.2
Preseason AP: 16
Yes, Acie Law is gone (so is Antanas Kavaliauskas), but left behind is a talented trio in Josh Carter, Joseph Jones and Dominique Kirk. Freshman seven-footer DeAndre Johnson is a burgeoning force in the Big Twelve. This was the seventh best team in the country last season, and it would be a mistake to myopically concentrate on the loss of Law to the neglect of the remaining talent – that is, the Aggies are still a very good team.

Preseason 11 - 30

11. Clemson
Rating: +18.1
Preseason AP: n/a

12. Wisconsin
Rating: +18.1
Preseason AP: n/a

13. Arkansas
Rating: +17.8
Preseason AP: 19

14. Kentucky
Rating: +17.5
Preseason AP: 20

15. Marquette
Rating: +17.4
Preseason AP: 11

16. Florida
Rating: +17.3
Preseason AP: n/a

17. Ohio St.
Rating: +16.6
Preaseason AP: n/a

18. Southern Illinois
Rating: +16.5
Preseason AP: 24

19. Texas
Rating: +15.4
Preseason AP: 15

20. North Carolina St.
Rating: +15.2
Preseason AP: 21

21. Pittsburgh
Rating: +15.0
Preseason AP: 22

22. Florida St.
Rating: +15.0
Preseason AP: n/a

23. Notre Dame
Rating: +15.0
Preseason AP: n/a

24. Mississippi St.
Rating: +14.9
Preseason AP: n/a

25. Oregon
Rating: +14.7
Preseason AP: 12

26. Xavier
Rating: +14.7
Preseason AP: n/a

27. Indiana
Rating: +14.6
Preseason AP: 9

28. Maryland
Rating: +14.4
Preseason AP: n/a

29. West Virginia
Rating: +14.4
Preseason AP: n/a

30. Illinois
Rating: +14.3
Preseason AP: n/a

What are the Hoops Nerd Ratings?

The Hoops Nerd Ratings are my college basketball rating system. They are expressed as either positive or negative points per 67 possessions. The goal is to measure how well a team can be expected to perform against average competition over the span of a 67 possession game, that being somewhere near the national average for tempo.

What makes the Hoops Nerd Ratings Unique?

The Hoops Nerd Ratings differ from other tempo-free efficiency ratings primarily in that current season data is transposed onto expected levels of performance and variance among the teams in each conference. That is, data from the past four seasons has been used to produce expected averages and standard deviations for each conference. By transposing current data onto these conference expectations in terms of quality and variance, we are able to properly situate each conference's average to the historical norm to which is it likely to regress over time, as well as get some insight into whether or not "breakout" teams are real.

For example, the Atlantic Ten has a very high expected standard deviation - because it is traditionally home to both very good (Xavier, for instance) and very bad (St. Bonaventure, for instance) teams - so if a team is having a real breakout season or a real stinker relative to its A-10 conference-mates, we can see that it is more likely to be maintained going forward than, say, a similar early-season outlier in the typically tight Big Sky Conference. The same principle applies to the transposition of the data onto the expected average of the conference.

This is essentially a contextual regression-to-the-mean process. We know how many points per 67 possessions that a z-score (number of standard deviations) is worth in each conference, and how well each conference is expected to perform, so Hoops Nerd Ratings take advantage of this.

How are the Numbers Made Early in the Season

The preseason ratings are made using a combination of the following factors:

• The previous season's data. The correlation of +/- points per 67 possessions for teams in the top 22 conferences is around .80 from season to season, so previous season's data is by far the most important factor;
• The incumbency rate of the given team's key contributors from last season, on a weighted-to-contribution basis, and
• The strength of each team's top two recruits.

Last season's data is adjusted based on incumbency rate and recruit rating, using historic year-to-year variance levels of teams within the given conference. The yields numbers that are transposed onto our expectations scale as described above, the same way that in-season data is. As the season progresses, less and less weight is attributed to the preseason ratings.

Daddy, Where does Raw Data Come From?

It comes from the lovely and talented Ken Pomeroy, whose adjusted efficiency statistics get squeezed, beaten and shaped through the methods listed above.

My name is Leigh and I am a College Basketball addict.

What you will see here at Hoops Nerd are my thoughts and ideas about contemporary issues in the world of College Hoops, and a dizzying array of numbers. Appropriately enough, I am a nerd: I can't dribble or shoot, but I excel at Excel.

One thing you will notice about my blog is I make frequent reference to statistics with names like "Effective Field Goal Percentage", adjectives like "Tempo-Free", and ideas like "Four Factors". If these things are new to you, you should consider reading up on some of the primers that have been written by people with greater understanding than I - such as Ken Pomeroy or the KnickerBlogger.

I hope that you enjoy Hoops Nerd.